🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #262

Good morning! Let's conquer this Wednesday together!

#Reddit - Researchers covertly ran a months-long "unauthorized" experiment in one of Reddit’s most popular communities using AI-generated comments to test the persuasiveness of large language models. The experiment, which was revealed over the weekend by moderators of r/changemyview, is described by Reddit mods as “psychological manipulation” of unsuspecting users.

India Orders Block Of Encrypted Email Provider Proton Mail
A court in India has ordered the blocking of encrypted email provider Proton Mail across the country. The Karnataka High Court directed the Indian government to block the service. A New Delhi-based firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Protonmail.

Tamil Nadu Government Launches 100 Mbps Broadband Plan
Tamil Nadu has taken a major step toward digital empowerment. State IT Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan announced a high-speed internet plan offering 100 Mbps connectivity to households at just Rs 200 per month. This initiative aims to bridge the digital divide and provide equitable access to knowledge and digital services.

Rapido To Enter Food Delivery Space
Rapido, a ride-hailing company, is now planning to launch its own food delivery service in Bengaluru. They're in talks with big chains like McDonald's and KFC, and aim to deliver food within a 5 km radius for around Rs 250 per order, which is cheaper than the existing players. They're trying to challenge the commission-based model of Zomato and Swiggy.

Indian Railways Takes To The Skies With Drone-based Cleaning
The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) completed its first drone-based cleaning operation on a pilot basis at Kamakhya Railway Station in Assam. The operation showcased the ability of drone technology to access and maintain elevated structures with precision and ease.

Firefox - Introduces a profile manager, allowing users to create separate profiles for work, study, and personal use, each with their own bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history.

Meta AI App - New App from Meta. Introduced a new Discover feed for users to view and interact with AI-generated content from friends and others, with features to like, comment, share, and remix content.

ChatGPT - Integrated shopping feature allows users to compare and purchase products directly within the chatbot, with links to external websites for checkout.

Reddit - Adds support for Hindi in machine translation feature, enabling automatic translation of posts and comments.

State Of AI - Explore the State of AI 2025 report, offering insights from over 4,000 developers on AI tool adoption, usage patterns, and challenges in web development. Discover which AI tools are leading, how developers are integrating AI into their workflows, and the real-world impact of AI on coding practices.

Slidev - A powerful, open-source presentation tool designed for developers. Craft your slides using Markdown, seamlessly integrate Vue components, and enjoy features like code syntax highlighting, live coding, and presenter mode. With customizable themes and export options to PDF, PNG, or PPTX, Slidev streamlines the process of creating and sharing technical presentations. ​

Scaling Solo With Rails
PlanGo's founder shares his journey of building a seven-figure business with a single Rails codebase and one developer. He discusses the challenges of scaling, technical decisions, and lessons learned along the way, highlighting the importance of craftsmanship and the right tools.

Startup Exploitation
A cautionary tale of a junior developer's 11-month experience with a startup, Fixr, where he was exploited in an advisory capacity, highlighting the importance of due diligence and clear expectations when working with startups.

OpenAI's Sycophancy Problem
OpenAI's GPT-4 update has amplified the model's tendency to excessively praise users, raising concerns about its use in advice or therapy settings, and highlighting a "dark pattern" of user interface design that tricks users into desired behaviors, potentially stemming from the model's optimization for user-pleasing behavior and Chatbot Arena benchmarks.